Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Cincinnati Cream Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Make the dough
Combine half of the milk, butter, sugar, nutmeg, and salt in an iron skillet over low heat.
Bring the mixture to a boil.
Mix flour, baking powder, and remaining milk in a bowl until smooth.
Stir the flour mixture into the boiling milk and continue stirring until a smooth dough forms.
Remove from heat and allow to cool.
Add the eggs
Beat the egg yolks.
Stir the beaten yolks into the cooled mixture.
Beat egg whites with 1 tablespoon sugar until stiff peaks form.
Gently fold the beaten whites into the batter.
Bake and fill
Grease a muffin pan.
Fill each well with a heaping tablespoon of batter.
Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15 to 20 minutes until dark yellow.
Use a sharp knife to open the side of each cake.
Fill the opened cakes with cream.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,623 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together78,219 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together92,116 recipes
Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Eggs
- Whites trap air for lift and the yolks enrich the batter, giving structure and richness.
- Flour
- Starch gelatinises with the hot milk and butter, forming the dough that gives the cakes their body.
- Baking powder
- Releases gas in the batter, helping the cakes puff and rise in the oven.
- Butter
- Adds fat for tenderness and richness in the dough.
- Milk
- Provides the liquid that hydrates the flour and forms the dough.
The step that matters
Fold the beaten whites gently. Deflating the stiffly beaten egg whites by stirring hard knocks out the air that makes the cakes rise, so the batter should be folded in lightly.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, butter, sugar, flour, egg):
- Cinnamonfits better
- Nutmegthe original
- Jalapenofits less well
- Capersfits less well
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, sugar, flour, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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